
Book > ■' '. * L 






THE 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH 



OTHER POEMS 



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?L°, S.' 



THE 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH, 

THE 

FUNERAL OF TIME, 



OTHER POEMS. 



BY HENRY B. HIRST 



Pro me : si rnerear, in me. 

Trajan. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY PHILLIPS & SAMPSON. 

MDCCCXLV. 






Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1845, 

BY PHILLIPS & SAMPSON, 

in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Eastern Dis- 
trict of Massachusetts. 



bli* 



PREFACE. 

Most of the following poems were 
written during the intervals of a prepara- 
tion for the Bar. Those among them 
which have already enjoyed their hour of 
notoriety in magazines or more ephemeral 
productions, appeared to deserve some 
further notice from their parent ; and they 
have received it, in order that they may be 
launched upon the waste of literary waters 
with somewhat better hope of riding the 
ripple of the coast, whatever may be their 
fate among the billows of the broader sea. 
Whether whelmed in the storm of criticism, 
or returned to port with some small cargo 
of renown, the issue is of little consequence 
to the author — whose all is not invested 
in this single adventure. 

I* (5) 



VI PREFACE. 



The Coming of the Mammoth is almost 
strictly a poetical version of the ancient 
Indian legend of the last of the Mastodons ; 
and if any uncouthness should be apparent 
in the style, it must be attributed rather 
to the nature of the subject than the taste 
of the writer. To have rendered it more 
spiritual, would have been, to make a 
sacrifice of the graphic to poetical beauty, 
beyond the extent allowed by poetical 
license. 

Several of the longer poems, as well as 
some of the sonnets, were originally pub- 
lished under a nom de plume; but the 
public, it is hoped, will not consider them 
the less worthy, that they have now re- 
claimed their proper paternity. 

Philadelphia, June, 1845. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

The Coming of the Mammoth 11 

EARLY POEMS. 

The Funeral of Time 31 

Isabelle 37 

Geraldine 48 

The Unseen River ^ 53 

The Burial of Eros 60 

The Sea of the Mind 64 

The Birth of a Poet 70 

Everard Grey 74 

The Fringilla Melodia 76 

The Coming of Autumn 80 

The Autumn Wind 82 

Eleanore 85 

Mary 88 

To an Old Oak 92 

The Passage of the Birds 95 

To a Ruined Fountain 97 

To E , with a withered Rose 99 

The Death-Song of the Nightingale 100 

Eulalie Vere 104 

To the American Sky-Lark 106 

Ellena 108 

Coming on of Night Ill 

Violet 113 

A Gift 116 

(vii) 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

The Owl 118 

Song 120 

Mutius Scsevola 122 

The Forsaken 125 

The Lament of Adam 127 

The Statue-Love 129 

May 132 

Dramatic Fragments 135 

The Song of the Scald, Biorne 137 

Summer 143 

SONNETS. 

The Minds of Eld 149 

Life 150 

Loneliness 151 

Endurance 152 

Moon-light. .\ . 153 

Indian Summer 154 

On a Misty Morning in May 155 

Alpheus 156 

The Desolated 157 

The Poet's Grave 158 

Lydia 159 

Posthumous Fame 160 

The Poet's Soul. . '. 161 

Dead-Man's Island , 162 

Bethlehem 163 

To Keats 164 

Heart-Land 165 

Natal Stars 166 

The Poet 167 

Astarte 168 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH 

( 9 ) 



THE 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH 



Slow sank the Sun-God down the sky, 
As rose the snowy mists of even, 

And tranquilly, with placid eye, 

The Moon illumed the eastern heaven ; 

And Night, on wings of ebon hue, 

Sailed circling over the welkin blue. 

In groups before each wigwam door 

We sat ; while, 'neath the Night-Queen's light, 

Our children, on the river shore, 
Pursued the game of mimic fight, 

Or leaped along in lengthened race, 

Or practised for the woodland chase. 



12 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

With happy hearts we gazed around, 
Marking their agile figures pass, 

In many a frolic, fawn-like bound, 
Sportively o'er the dewy grass, 

When, suddenly, a sulphurous shade 

Fell gloomily on glen and glade : 

And, from the distance, wild, and strange, 
And clangorous clamours eddied past, 

As, hurrying on this boding change, 
Arose the murmurs of the blast; 

And heavy clouds swept down and round. 

Whirling, like marsh-mists, o'er the ground. 

We stood appalled — aghast with dread — 

The tumult shaking earth and air- 
When, over Alleghany's head, 

Appeared a faint and flickering glare. 
And groans, as though its peaks were riven. 
Swelled terriblv from earth to heaven. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 13 

Then came a deeper, dreader sound. 

Crash echoed crash so loud and fast, 
We deemed a whirlwind swept the ground, 

Crushing the forests as it passed ; 
And quaked the earth ; and luridly 
Coursed the swift lightning through the sky. 

The wild birds fled the creaking woods, 
The cougar rushed from glade to glade 

And, fluttering from the swelling floods, 
The herons sought the cypress shade, 

But left it for the blackening skies, 

Stunning the air with clamorous cries. 

Onward and on, a myriad forms, 

Unearthly in their savage mien, 
Each, like a mountain crowned with storms. 

Came thundering through the forests green ; 

While, flickering on the eyes of night, 

Around them rolled a lambent light. 
2 



14 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

With snake like trunk and hide of steel, 
And tusks like primal sycamores, 

Making the earth in passing reel, 

They hastened toward the Atlantic shores, 

The loftiest trees beneath their tread 

Sinking like rushes — black and dead. 

On, like the hurricane, they came ! 

On, like the hurricane, they passed ! 
An instant — and the air was flame, 

And rushing round us, roared the blast ! 
Another — and their forms had gone 
O'er the far forests, surging on ! 

That weary night we knelt in prayer, 
While, loudly on our wondering ears 

Their roars re-echoed through the air, — 
A fiendish mockery of our fears : 

At last, along the eastern way 

All slowly crept the light of day. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 15 

And then that lovely land of ours, 

Studded with sunny vales and streams 

And pleasant bowers and beauteous flowers, 
As seems our Spirit-Home in dreams, 

Where, frolicking in green-wood shade, 

The elk and deer together played, 

'T was changed ; and such a fearful change ! 

For rock and tree and forest lay 
Around the ruined scene in strange 

And wild and terrible array. 
The night — and all was verdure green — 
The morn — not even the grass was seen ! 

We sat, for days, like men asleep : 

The sense of evil, like a weight, 
Lay on our souls, where horror deep 

Reclined in dark and dismal state, 
'Till bowing down in apathy 
We recked not what our fates might be. 



16 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

We saw them hunt the buffalo, 

And crush them with their teeth of steel, 
The mountains rocking to and fro, 

Like trees that in the tempest reel, 
When passed their herds ; and lake and river 
A draught of theirs made dry for ever. 

Our sons waxed weak ; our daughters paled, 
Like flowers before the autumnal breeze ; 

Our terror-stricken warriors quailed 

When rang their roaring through the trees 

We lived and moved — scarce drawing breath, 

Dreading this desolating death. 

At last, elate with new-born pride, 
Our braves went forth to slay the foe : 

Filing along the mountain side, 
They entered on the plain below: 

But never one of them came back, 

Nor dared we seek their distant track. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 17 

Days — weeks — moons past, and direr still 
These monsters' ravages became, 

Until we deemed Moneddo's will 
Had given us to these sons of Flame — 

The fearful instruments on whom 

Devolved a haughty people's doom. 

Starving, we sought the distant deer, 
While round our perishing children lay, 

A.nd wives and fathers — young and sere — 
Breathed blessings on the hunter's way. 

We sought, and found, half-hidden with stones 

And blackened earth, our brothers' bones ! 

God of my fathers ! 'T was a sight 
To quench the courage of the bold ! 

Green mosses fringing all the white 
And shattered limbs with slimy fold, 

They slept ; while, bleaching in the air, 

Their eveless skulls lay crushed and bare. 

2* 



18 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

We dug them on the spot a grave, 
And laid them in the soddened ground, 

And, slowly gathering, sadly gave 

Our nation's death-song o'er the mound 

Then turned, in agony of pain, 

And sought our desolate homes again. 

At last, we reached them : there was not 
A sign of life ; no murmur broke 

The silence of that tomb-like spot ; 
No single voice a welcome spoke. 

We looked upon each other — read 

Each other's faces — all were dead. 

Dumb with the depth of our despair, 
We stood : a freezing torpor crept 

Upon us, and the very air 

Around us, like a sick man, slept ; 

While, slowly fading, day by day, 

We wasted in our pride away. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 19 

Moneddo ! 'T is a fearful thing 
To see the strong man hourly quiver 

With pallid fear, yet closely cling 

To hope, with heart as strong as ever ; — 

To view his form convulsed with grief, 

And know that nought can bring relief. 

But we had grown so cold, we wist 
No longer for such sights as these, 

For none would to the other list ; 
But each in his own miseries 

Enshrined himself, and sat alone, 

Hardening himself to senseless stone. 

Moon after moon rolled slowly on, 
And, sad in spirit, crushed in heart, 

We knew not how the time had gone, 
Save when we saw some friend depart, 

And, when we laid him down to sleep, 

We sighed to share a rest as deep. 



20 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

Around us everywhere was waste, 

Strange weeds about our pathways grew, 

And feeble Famine slowly paced, 

Grim, gaunt and ghastly, in our view ; 

Then rose the prayer from madness riven, 

To great Moneddo throned in Heaven. 

He heard ; and, gazing o'er the land, — 
A desolate desert, black and bare, — 

Waved through the heavens his awful hand 
In answer to our frantic prayer, 

And sent the storm. Then flashed on high 

His bolts of vengeance through the sky. 

We knelt — all breathless — dumb with dread; 

The sun waxed like a globe of fire; 
Then sunk ; roaring the tempest spread : 

Earth shook; the surging heaven grew 
nigher ; 
While roar on roar, with thundering din, 
Went up from meadow, marsh and glen. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 21 

Sternly, magnificently grand, 

In ruin's awful majesty, 
Lay the wild chaos of the land, 

Looming afar from sea to sea ; 
While Darkness, like a giant, wound 
His ebon arms the earth around. 

Intense and fathomless, the cloud 

Spread o'er our wildly straining sight, 

Save when its almost palpable shroud, 
Rent by the levin's vivid light, 

An instant severed ; closing o'er 

The scene more densely than before. 

Then, valley, stream, and mountain stood, 
Lit by the lightning's lurid gleam, 

In bold relief; while through the wood, 
Blasted and bare, its vivid beam 

Flashed, like the fire-lights of the North, 

When Winter rules the frozen earth. 



22 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

Moneddo ! Then our mighty foes, 

Like mountains in the earthquake's shock, 

Or ocean in its wildest throes, 

Swept over vale and wood and rock, 

In wild despair, while hill and lea 

Heaved 'neath them like the billowy sea 

Bolt rushed on bolt, 'till, one by one, 

Howling in agony, they died : 
Save him — the fiercest ! And alone 

He stood ; — almost a God in pride — 
Then, with a loud, defying yell, 
Leapt, like a shaft, o'er hill and dell. 

Our sires, upon his adamant brow, 
Saw the red levin strike and shiver, 

And yet, amid the infernal glow, 
He battled, fierce and firm as ever, 

Slowly retreating toward the west, 

With haughty front and dauntless crest. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 23 

For hours the conflicts din arose. 

Though trembling, on his desolate track, 
Our warriors rushed. Came — even close 

And darkness : yet they turned not back. 
Day woke again — morn, noon, and night — 
And still they followed on his flight. 

Morass and forest rose before, 

And opening swiftly, closed behind : 

They heard the mountain torrent roar, — 
The avalanche fall ; but, like the wind, 

They hurried on toward where, ahead, 

The dissonant din of battle spread. 

For months, while they untired pursued 
The Mammoth's steps, Moneddo flashed 

His dreadful bolts ; but, unsubdued, 

His savage foe, though round him crashed 

The thunder ; though about him plashed 

The surging storm ; undaunted, dashed 



24 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

Majestic onwards. Sweeping by, 

Turbid and swollen with autumn rains, 

Red Mississippi rushed : — his eye 

Grasped the stern scene : beyond, the plains, 

Broad, bright and green. One leap — his last 1 

The wide, wild-swelling stream was past ! 

Before him, far as eye could view, 
The prairie lay ; but, as he sprang 

Again to flight, the lightning flew 
Around him, and the thunder rang. 

The wild grass flashed to flame : a sea 

Of burning billows swept the lea. 

Flame o'er him — round him — 'neath him, still 
He kept his western path, 'till lay 

The Rocky Mountains, hill on hill, 
A granite barrier in his way, 

And, at their base, he turned again, 

While on him lightning fell like rain. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 25 

Tearing up trees and rocks, he flung 
Them fiercely in the face of God. 

Drowning the thunder, loudly rung 
His yells, and still defying, he trod 

The blackened ground, with dauntless eye 

Daring the Highest of the High. 

Gathering his utmost strength, and wild 
At meeting from the thing he made 

Such savage scorn, Moneddo piled 
Chaotic masses, and arrayed 

The Spirits of the Storm, while fell 

Blackness, like that which reigns in hell. 

On earth and air. The Mammoth turned 
And unsubdued, with new T -born might. 

While fiercer yet his eye-balls burned, 

Sprang toward the mountain's giddy height. 

Mocking, as on he rushed unriven, 

The innocuous bolts of mighty heaven. 



26 COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 

Leaps forth the lightning ! Swells the blast. 
Howling around him ! From his throne 

Moneddo dashes thick and fast 

His gathered weapons, — tree and stone 

And rock and thunder — but in vain — 

The Mammoth treads the summit plain. 

And there, above the distant flood, 
Half-shrouded by the clouds, alone 

He moved, and like a monarch, stood — 
Those mighty hills his massive throne — 

A monument for endless time, 

Majestic, motionless, sublime ! 

Moneddo gazed, and ordering forth 
His mightiest spirits, bade them dash 

His rude insulter to the earth. 

They heard ! With one tremendous crash 

Down on the Mammoth's forehead came 

A surging sea of withering flame. 



COMING OF THE MAMMOTH. 27 

Earth trembled to its core ; and weak, 
But unsubdued, the Mammoth leapt 

Furiously from that lofty peak 

To where the dark blue ocean slept. 

Down! down! The startled waters sever; 

Then roll above him — and forever! 



FUNEEAL OF TIME, 

AND 

OTHER POEMS. 

(29) 
3* 



31 



THE FUNERAL OF TIME. 



Lo ! through a shadowy valley, 

March, with measured step and tread, 
A long array of Phantoms wan 
And pallid as the dead — 
The white and waxen dead ! 
With a crown on every head 
And a torch in every hand, 

To fright the sheeted ghosts away, 
That guard its portals night and day 
They seek the Shadow-Land. 



32 EARLY POEMS. 

On as the pale procession stalks, 

The clouds around divide, 
Raising themselves in giant shapes 
And gazing down in pride 
On the spectres as they glide 
Through the valley long and wide — 
On the spectres all so pale, 

In vestments whiter than the snow 
As through the dim defile they go 
With melancholy wail. 

On tramps the funeral file ; and now 

The weeping ones have passed, 
A throng succeeding, loftier 
And statelier than the last — 
The Monarchs of the Past ! 
And, upon the solemn blast, 

Wave their plumes and pennons high, 
And loud their mournful marches sweep 
Up from the valley dark and deep 
To the over-arching sky. 



THE FUNERAL OF TIME. 33 

And now the Cycle-buried years 

Stride on in stern array : 
Before each band the Centuries 
With beards of silver grey — 
The Marshals of the Day !— 
In silence pass away ; 

And behind them come the Hours 
And Minutes, who, as on they go, 
Are swinging steadily to and fro 
The incense round in showers. 

Behold the bier — the ebony bier ! — 

On sinewy shoulders borne 
Of many a dim, forgotten Year 
From Primal Times forlorn. 
All weary and all worn, 
With their ancient garments torn 
And their beards as white as Lear's, 
Lo ! how they tremble as they tread, 
Mourning above the marble dead, 
In agonies of tears. 



34 EARLY POEMS. 

How very wan the old man looks ! 

As wasted and as pale 
As some dim ghost of shadowy days 
In legendary tale. 
God give the sleeper, hail ! 
And the world hath much to Wail 
That his ears no more may hear ; 
For, with his palms across his breast 
He lieth in eternal rest 
Along his stately bier. 

How thin his hair ! How white his beard ! 

How waxen-like his hands, 
Which never more may turn the glass 
That on his bosom stands — 
The glass whose solemn sands 
Were won from Stygian strands ; — 
For his weary work is done, 

And he has reaped his latest field, 
And none that scythe of his can wield 
'Neath the dim, descending sun. 



THE FUNERAL OF TIME. 35 

At last they reach the Shadow-Land, 

And, with an eildritch cry, 
The guardian ghosts sweep wailingly 
Athwart the troubled sky, 
Like meteors flashing by, 
As asunder crashing fly 

With a wild and clangorous din, 
The gates, before the funeral train, 
Filing along the dreary plain 
And marching slow 7 ly in. 

Lo ! 'tis a temple ! and around, 

Tall ebony columns rise 
Up from the withering earth, and bear 
Aloft the shrivelling skies, 
Where the tempest trembling sighs, 
And the ghostly moonlight dies 
'Neath a lurid comet's glare, 

That over the mourners' plumed heads 
And on the Dead a lustre sheds 
From its crimson floating hair ! 



36 EARLY POEMS. 

The rites are read — the requiem sung ; 

And, as the echoes die, 
The Shadow Chaos rises — 
With a wild, unearthly cry — 
A giant, to the sky ! 
His arms out-stretched on high 
Over Time that dead doth lie ; 
And with a voice that shakes the spheres. 
He shouts to the mourners mad with 
fears, 
"Depart ! Lo! here am I!" 

Down, showering fire, the comet sweeps : 

Shivering, the pillars fall; 
And, lightning-like, the red flames rush. 
A whirlwind, over all ! 
And Silence spreads her pall — 
Like pinions over the hall — 
Over the temple overthrown — 

Over the dying and the unburied dead — 
And, with a heavily-drooping head. 
Sits — statue-like — alone ! 



37 



ISABELLE. 



A lustrous maid was Isabelle, 
And quiet as a brooding bird ; 

She never thought of passion's spell — 
Of love she never heard ; 

But in her lonely chamber sat, 
Sighing the weary hours away, 

From morn, 'till flitting of the bat 
Around the turrets gray, 

And trembling with a strange unrest, 
A yearning for — she knew not what 

She only knew her heaving breast 
Was heavy with its lot. 



38 EARLY POEMS. 

And so she spent her maiden days, 

With neither heart to laugh nor sing— 

With neither heart for earthly ways. 
Nor hope from earthly thing: 

But lived a being wrapt in dreams 
Of passion and of Paradise — 

An earthly one, lit up by gleams 
Beaming from loving eyes. 

At last she passed to womanhood, 

And sat her down on Beauty's throne. 

A statue with a beating heart 
Beneath a breast of stone. 

And then a blue-eyed page there came 
Smiling along her lonely way ; 

And Isabelle was all aflame 
And wild as bird in May. 



ISABELLE. 39 

Her lustrous eyes grew large with love ; 

Her cheeks, with passion, flushed and bright : 
Her lips, whereon no bee might rove 

Tndrunken with delight, 

Were ever apart and jewelled o'er 
With diamonds of nectarian dew ; 

Her fair and faultless features wore 
A spiritual hue; 

Her step grew certain with the firm, 
Full knowledge she had passed the night 

Of woman's life, and reached the term, 
Where, henceforth, all was light. 

She felt she had not lived in vain ; 

She saw the Eden of her dreams 
Close round her, and she stood again 

Beside its silver streams. 



40 EARLY POEMS. 

The seed of love, God's hand had sown, 
With life, within her woman's soul, 

Had swollen to leaf, and, sudden, grown 
Beyond her will's control — 

Grown to a tall and stately tree, 

Whose shadows fell (as shadows fall) 

Upon her life, and she was free 
From sorrow's solemn thrall. 



She sighed no more at even-tide, 

She sighed no more at night or morn, 

She knew not in the world so wide 
A single thing forlorn. 

And ever she sung her lightest lays. 

And never she shed a single tear, 
But roamed about in woodland ways 

As merry as the deer. 



ISABELLE. 41 

Her father watched her as she passed, 
And said her mother's step was there ; 

Her mother's features in her glassed — 
She had her mother's hair. 



The servants followed her with their eyes, 
And prayed the Virgin that her hours 

Might ever pass under azure skies, 
And over parterres of flowers. 

But shadows fall from angel wings, 
And happiest moments welcome woe ; 

No joy is born but brings its stings, 
And nought is bliss below. 

Her father, wrapped in study's spell, 

At last awoke, and saw the change 

That time had wrought in Isabelle, 

And thought it passing strange ! 
4 * 



42 EARLY POEMS. 

And instant, out he called his train, 

And forth, with hawk and hound, at noon 

He rode, and when he came again 
There came Prince Ethelrune — 



Prince Ethelrune, a knight whose fame 
Shone ever fairest in field or hall, 

Came circled with his shining name 
At lady's feet to fall. 



He wooed the maid with courtly word. 

Bowing to her his royal pride, 
And said, (with pain the lady heard,) 

He sought her as his bride. 



And Isabelle rose like the moon, 
And bent the full light of her eyes 

Upon the kneeling Ethelrune, 
And, sighing, bade him rise. 



ISABELLE. 43 

" My hand," said she, " I may not keep ; 

My heart, sir knight, is not my own ; 
And 'till in abbey-vault I sleep, 

It owns but one alone. 



"And, as thou art an honest knight, 
Strive not my plighted faith to move 

Thy hand may clasp another's right, 
But cannot grasp my love. 

" No ! choose a better — nobler part ; 

My true knight and my brother be, 
And let a sister's loving heart 

Beat in my breast for thee." 

The gentle knight arose and said, 
" Lady, I krss thy snowy hand ; 

The maiden loth, I would not wed 
The loftiest in the land. 



44 EARLY POEMS. 

"And tell me, who is he so blest 
With love that I would die to win; 

For be he knight of noteless crest, 
Or princely paladin, 

" In hall or field to none I '11 yield 
A sovereign's right to bear him on, 

Until his lip his love has sealed 
On thine, and thou art won." 



"A noble knight," said she, " art thou 
Our Lady's blessing on thy head ! 

And had I never plighted vow 
None other would I wed. 



"A simple page, my love is bight, 
But fair ; and braver than the best 

That bears on high in knightly fight 
An unattainted crest." 



ISABELLE. 45 



"A simple page !" the lover said ; 

" Why Lady, this can never be ! 
A maid like thee may never wed 



A man of mean degree. 



" But I will make thy page a knight, 
And forth beside me he shall go, 

And gather glory in the fight 
From crest of Paynim foe. 



•'And I will give him house and land, 
And shape his rank to favour thine, 

And then, together ye shall stand 
Before the sacred shrine. 



The lady raised her azure eyes, 
Like violets, gleaming with the dew 

Of glistening tears, and said, with sighs, 
" I yield my fate to you." 



46 EARLY POEMS. 

" Then bring the page, for I would see 
The lover who hath won so well 

Despite her haughty, high degree, 
The Lady Isabelle. 

The gentle-hearted maid is gone ; 

The noble knight in sorrow stands ; 
For well he loves the dove-like one 

He yields to other hands. 

But little time hath he for woe — 
The sound of gentle footsteps fell 

Upon his ears, and smiling, lo ! 
The page and Isabelle ! 

And now he stands in mute amaze : 
And now he drops his wondering eyes. 

As though afraid again to gaze 
On what before him lies. 



ISABELLE. 47 

Up spake the page, " It is no dream ; 

Brother ! I am a thing of earth ; — 
And, Lady, not the churl I seem, 

But one of lofty birth." 

Then quoth the Prince in merry glee, 
" Sure Fortune never smiled so well 

On maiden as she has on thee, 
Sweet sister Isabelle !" 



48 



GERALDINE. 



The martins twitter round the eaves, 

The swifts adown the chimney glide, 
The bees are humming mid the leaves 

Along the garden side : 
The robin whistles in the wood, 
The linnet on the vane, 
And down the alder-margined lane 
The throstle sings, and by the flood 
The plover pipes again. 



GERALDINE. 49 

But ah — alas! alas! no more 

Their merry melodies delight : 
No more along the river's shore 

I watch the swallow's flight: 
And bees may hum, and birds may sing. 
And silver streamlets shine, 
But on the rocks I sit and pine 
Unheeding all ; for thought will cling 
To nought but Geraldine. 



Oh, Geraldine ! my life, my love ! 

I only wander where we met 

In emerald days — when blue above 

The skies were o'er us set — 

Along the glen, and o'er the vale, 

And by the willow tree 

I wander, where at even with thee 

I suns the song and told the tale 

Of olden chivalry. 
5 



50 EARLY POEMS. 

I stand beneath the sombre pines 

That darken all thy father's hall, 
Begirt with noisome ivy vines 

That shroud me like a pall. 
Aye, there — where ruin frowns around ! 
Until the cock doth crow, 
I watch, thy window-panes below, 
Upon the sodden, blackened ground, 

Where nothing good will grow 



I 've watched thy lattice as before, 
To see the glimmer dimly pass, 
When thou wouldst open thy chamber door, 

Of lamp-light on the glass; 
But none from out thy lattice peeps, 
And all within is gloom, 
And silent as a vacant tomb, 
Save when a bat affrighted cheeps 
In some deserted room. 



GERALDINE. 51 

Why comest thou not ? Night after night, 

For many a long and weary year, 
'Neath many and many a May-moon's light, 

I 've waited for thee here. 
Aye, blackest night and wildest storm, 
When frowning in the sky, 
Have looked on me with lightning eye, 
And charnel figures round my form 

Have gleamed and hurried by. 

Why comest thou not ? or wilt thou soon ? 

The crimson sun doth wax and wane 
Day after day ; the yellow moon 

Gildeth thy casement pane 
Night after night ; the stars are pale 
Expecting thee ; the breeze, 
Rustling among the dreary trees 
Sighs for thee with a woful wail, 

Who art beyond the seas. 



EARLY POEMS. 



They tell me thou wilt never come : 
Alas ! that thou art cold and dead 
And slumbering in the green sea-foam 

Upon some coral bed: — 
That shriekingly thy ship went down 
Beneath the wailing wave, 
And none were near to hear or save , 
And then they weep to see me frown — 
To hear me groan and rave. 

Thou dead ! no, no, — it cannot be ! 

For, if thou wast, thy ghost had kept 
The solemn trist thou madest with me 

When all, save passion, slept : — 
Thy ghost had come and greeted me 
And bade me be at rest ; 
And long ere this, upon my breast 
The clod had lain ; and I with thee 

Were roaming 'mid the blest. 



53 



THE UNSEEN RIVER. 



Through a valley green and golden, 
In the purple time and olden, 

When the East was growing grey ; 
When the mists were star-ward creeping — 
Weeping — being woke from sleeping 
By the anthems of the Day ; — 
While, like vapour o'er a city, fluctuating stil 
they lay ; 

5* 



54 EARLY POEMS. 

Walking through their shrouding shadows, 
Over daisy-dimpled meadows, 

Moved a proud and princely youth, 
With a foot-fall light and airy 
As the sylphid step of fairy, 

And a forehead stamped with truth : — 
An Apollo ! incarnating lofty scorn and loving 
ruth. 



From the valley, — from a river, — 
Which, with many a silver quiver, 

Through the landscape stole in light :— 
From the bushes, shrubs and blossoms, — 
Flowers unfolding fragrant bosoms, — 
Curled the shadows out of sight ; 
Fading, like a ghost, in air. And ever the 
river rippled bright. 



THE UNSEEN RIVER. 



Fruits of crimson — purple — azure — 
Thrilled his Poet-soul with pleasure 
Which, from all, new glory won ; 
While around him birds were chaunting, — 
Birds that fairy valley haunting, — 
Such as Mother Earth had none 
And like gems their pinions glistened, glancing 
in the aspiring sun. 



In a sweet excitement swimming, 
All his soul with beauty brimming, 
While the morning grew to noon 
In that glorious valley — listening 
To the music — by the glistening 
River — sung with lulling tune, 
While his heart throbbed echo 'neath Lethean 
languor born of June — 



56 EARLY POEMS. 

Carelessly the youth went straying 
Like a merry child a-Maying. 
And the river rippled on. 
While now that a thirst pursued him, 
And the noon-tide heat subdued him, 
And he felt him weak and wan, 
Thinking of the stream, he turned him, fevered ; 
but the stream was gone! 



Searching for it, on he wandered 
Hour by hour ; and sadly pondered 
As to where its waves might be : 
And the valley slowly faded 
To a primal forest, shaded 
By full many a mossy tree. 
Still, he could not see the stream meandering 
through the meadowy lea. 



THE UNSEEN RIVER. 57 

But the murmur of the river, 
Rippling, running, plashing ever, 
Floated on his yearning ear : 
Still before he heard it flowing — 
Heard it kiss the rocks while going, 
Seeming, as he heard it, near; 
Whispering nearer, flowing onward, gurgling 
every instant freer. 



More luxuriant, greener, brighter, 
Glossier, loftier, and lighter 

Grew the foliage where it seemed; 
And the woodland birds sang clearer, 
And the waters near and nearer 

Murmured, till he thought they gleamed ; 
And, between the emerald leaves, he dreamed 
the silver wavelets beamed. 



58 EARLY POEMS. 

Through the trees, among the bushes, 
Looking for the river rushes, 

Onward, onward, still he went, 
Listening to the water's plashing — 
Listening to the eddies dashing 
In their crystal merriment: 
But he found it not, though stooping — gazing, 
'till his form grew bent. 



All around grew dark and dreary, 
And our wanderer, very weary, 

Tottered feebly, full of pain, 
From the forest; with his figure 
Robbed of all its youthful vigour : — 
And the sun was on the wane — 
And night's swarthy, solemn shadows slowly 
gathered round the plain. 



THE UNSEEN RIVER. 59 

And — among those shades lamenting, — 
Urged by old Time unrelenting, — 

Where was never else but gloom — 
From the sight the wanderer faded, 
By chaotic blackness shaded, 
While the silence of the tomb 
Wrapped him, shroud-like; and that silence 
was the requiem of his doom. 



00 



THE BURIAL OF EROS. 



Love lieth in his halls a corpse, 

While, mourning round his coffin, stand 
The wan and pallid Feelings, like 

Dim spectres from the Shadow-land. 
His nose is pinched, his lips are blue, 

His once round cheeks are sunken and thin. 
And heavily sleep his clotted locks 
Along his yellow, waxen skin. 
" Poor Love, dear Love," the mourners say, 
" 'Tis sad that one so young should die ! 
Poor Love, dear Love ! Ah, dreary day 
That seeth him in cold earth lie !" 



THE BURIAL OF EROS. 01 

" He was a merry wight,'' saith one ; 

" But fond of mischief," saith another; 
" And yet, despite his wayward ways," 

Quoth Hope, " I loved him like a brother. 
He used to laugh and chat with me 

And seemed to live upon my smiles, 
Whilst I was heedless of his tricks, — 
There was such magic in his wiles. 
" Poor Love, dear Love," the mourners say, 

" He was too good a lad to die !" 
And then arose from every lip 

A wild and weird and wailing cry. 

" I never shall forgive myself," 

Quoth Hope, " that I forsook the boy ; 
Had I remained, those sightless eyes 

Would now be lit with life and joy." 
Quoth Grief, " no sooner had you gone, 

Than down he came and sat with me, 
Crying and sighing night and day, 

A very baby at my knee." 



62 EARLY POEMS. 

" Poor Love, dear Love," the mourners say, 
" 'T was wrong in Hope to leave the boy ! 

Had she remained, this dreary day 
Would be a day of golden joy. 

Then spoke Despair, "from Grief he came 

To me, his eyes agape and wild : 
I bore him in and cherished him, 

But soon a maniac grew the child ; 
And then I took his quivering form 
And on my bosom made his bed, 
Nursing him with a mother's love 
Until he slumbered with the dead." 
" Poor Love, dear Love," the mourners say, 

" A weary vigil was Despair's ! 
Hers was the mother's gentle watch, 
And hers the mother's many cares. 

They screwed Love's coffin cover down 
With many a sigh and many a tear, 

And placed him, heavily of heart, 
Upon his plumed, ebon bier, 



THE BURIAL OF EROS. 63 

And ranging them in double line, 

(How did the plumes and weepers wave !) 
They bore him from his lonely home 
And laid him in his silent grave. 
The bell is tolled — the mass is o'er — 

The prayers are said — the service done — 
And all are gone, save Hope, who weeps 
By Love's untimely tomb alone. 



64 



THE SEA OF THE MIND. 



To the eyes of man forbidden, where seraphic 

shadows be, 
Under a mountain summit hidden, flows a pure, 

pellucid sea; — 
Ever glowing, ever gleaming, with a mystic, 

magic light, 
Though in secret caverns shrouded — shrouded 

in a seeming night: — 

Yet, around its crystal waters, woods and 

valleys lie dispread, — 
Decked with trees of emerald verdure, that a 

sweet aroma shed ; — 



THE SEA OF THE MIND. (55 

Birds of gay and gorgeous plumage, shaped 

as never birds were seen, 
Purple, scarlet, amethyst, azure, flutter through 

their foliage green. 

Blossoms everywhere are blooming — blossoms 
trail from every tree, 

While their fragrance, zephyr-scattered, cloud- 
like, floats on every lea : — 

Butterflies on every floweret, wave their multi- 
coloured wings, 

And from every rocklet running, flow a myriad 
murmuring springs. 

Silvery the ocean singeth over sands of pearly 

glow; 
Under its surface shapes are gliding, — gliding 

fast or sailing slow — 
Shapes of strange supernal beauty, floating 

through a fairy wave — 
Fairer, purer, lovelier, brighter than the streams 

that Irani lave. 
6* 



titi EARLY POEMS. 

Fair the rocks that over-arch it ! — bright the 

gems that 'neath it rest ! 
Brighter, fairer yet the vessels, sailing on its 

silver breast — 
Vessels, fairy-like in beauty, silken-sailed and 

bannered gay, 
Wreathed with glorious garlands — breathing 

all the balmy breath of May: — 

Others gorgeous, grand, majestic; — royal vessels 
fretted round 

With golden figures ; — ebon-masted, and with 
ribs of iron bound. 

Others fearfully — fiercely featured — built as if 
by barbarous hands, 

Like the Arabesquely-shapen barks of Cartha- 
ginian lands. 

Some are full of youths and maidens, — bright 

Bacchantes fair as day: 
Others carry bearded warriors — warriors swart, 

and grim and grey. 



THE SEA OF THE MIND. 67 

Some with kings and queens are laden, robed 

in robes of Tyrian dye, 
While, in others, hideous Satyrs stalk the decks 

or sleeping lie. 

Some upon the bubbling billows slowly, softly, 

lightly slide; 
Others swiftly sweep and madly o'er the 

wounded waters stride. 
Oftentimes these barks conflicting, hurl the 

weaker far beneath 
Waves that seem so purely peaceful, none 

would deem they shrouded death. 

Stalactitic islands ever rise from out the waves 
around ; — 

Sapphire, diamond, emerald, ruby, glittering 
over the magic ground : — 

Islands bright with bowers of crystal — fanci- 
fully, featly made, 

Of the rarest architecture, with the richest 
gems inlaid. 



68 EARLY POEMS. 

Beautifully bland this ocean's silver surface 

mostly seems, 
But as bright as was the beauty of the fiery 

Sappho's dreams; 
Yet, a storm may come, and fearful, terrible, 

and black, and strange 
Roll its billows, and its vessels, rudderless and 

courseless range. 

When appears this tempest, ever vanishes its 

mystic light, 
And above it reigns a solemn, dreadful and 

chaotic night. 
Then the mountain slowly topples — falls ! and 

withering wanes away, — 
All its grandeur — all its beauties, mingling in 

a dull decay. 

Thus some Poet, quaint and olden, in the 
ancient, primal days, 

Wrote of Man, his soaring spirit and its won- 
der-working wavs : — 



THE SEA OF THE MIND. 69 

Telling tales of thoughts of Eros ; Paphian, 

others ; — others, rude ; — 
Others, sweet and dove-like ; — others, regal ; — 

others, guilt-imbrued. 

So, we took his strange old poem, graven w T ith 

an iron pen, 
And with mystic figures pictured all the magic 

thoughts of men ; 
And the mountain — Man — arose, like Thebac's 

walls at Amphion's breath, 
Swelled the silver sea of Mind and burst the 

terrible tempest — Death ! 



70 



THE BIRTH OF A POET. 



The air was all afloat with light, 

That down upon the house-tops came 
In shining showers, and solemn night 
Seemed in a silver flame. 

The arching azure over head 

Was flaked with gems ; the Orient 
With Dian at her full, lay spread 
Where'er the eye was bent: 



THE BIRTH OF A POET. 71 

With fleecy clouds that glided by, 

Like swimming swans along a lake, 
Whose glassy surface, like the sky, 
No breeze occurred to break. 



The roofs, the spires, the steeple-vanes 
Seemed swimming in the silver mist 
Which was the air; the window-panes 
The floating glory kissed. 

And all was still — a holy calm 

Lay dreaming on the sleeper's eyes, 
Filling his slumbering soul with balm 
Exhaled from Paradise — 



A holy calm, like that which falls 

In vast cathedrals, when the last 
Low organ tone along the walls 
In melody hath passed. 



72 EARLY POEMS. 

Such was the stillness ; not a note 

Of bird or cricket stirred the air ; 
Yet fairy music seemed to float 
In eddies everywhere. 

Music, like what in nightly dreams, 

Visions to us the glowing shore 
Whose flowering fields and flowing streams 
Shall glad us evermore : — 

Music like what the poet hears 

When, wrapt in harmony, he wings 
His soul away through argent spheres, 
And back their melody brings. 

The silver sounds of lyre and lute. 

And trumpet's bray and clarion's call 
With flowing notes of fife and flute 
Rose on the breeze — to fall. 



THE BIRTH OF A POET. 73 

Loudly they pealed, or wild, or weird, 
As grandly through the purple sky, 
The forms of wizard wights appeared, 
And marched, like shadows, by. 

Such portents shook the souls of Rome 
When mighty Caesar, madly brave, 
Forsook Calphurnia and his home 
To find — a tyrant's grave. 

But this was not of these ; the sound 
Foretold no deed of deadly wrong, 
But heralded to earthly ground, 
A simple son of song. 



74 



EVERARD GREY. 



Under a lattice encircled with flowers, 

Dim with the dew of the moon-litten hours, 

Singing to night, like a linnet in June, 

His heaving heart beating the time to his tune, 

Everard Grey in an ecstasy poured 

His passion in song to the maid he adored. 

" Lady," he sang, " when the clarion shall 

sound, 
Far from thy favour thy knight will be found. 
Long in the distance, in camp and in field, 
His falchion his fortune, his valour his shield, 
Everard Grey shall bestir him to make 
A name and a fame that are fair for thy sake." 



EVERARD GREY. 75 

Loud on the silence the shrill signal rang ; 
Swift to his saddle the troubadour sprang ; 
Waving his hand, down the valley he rode, 
Gazing his last on his lady's abode — 
On the lattice he left, and the fairy face there, 
Beaming out, like a moon, on the mid-summer 
air. 

Time — it has passed ; and the lady is pale — 
Pale as the lily that lolls on the gale ; 
Weary and worn she hath waited for years, 
Keeping her grief ever green with her tears : — 
Years will she tarry ; for cold is the clay 
Fettering the form of her Everard Grey. 



76 



THE FRINGILLA MELODIA. 



Happy Song-sparrow, that on woodland side, 

Or by the meadow sits, and, ceaseless, sings 
His mellow roundelay in russet pride, 
Owning no care between his wings. 

He has no tax to pay, nor work to do : 

His round of life is ever a pleasant one ; 
For they are merry that may naught but woo 
From yellow dawn till set of sun. 

The verdant fields, — the river-side, — the road ; 
The cottage garden, and the orchard green, 
When Spring with breezy footstep stirs abroad, 
His modest, mottled form have seen. 



THE FRINGILLA MELODIA. 77 

The cedar, at the cottage door, contains 

His nest ; the lilac by the walk as well ; 
From whence arise his silver-swelling strains, 
That echo loudly down the dell. 

And when at dewy eve the farmer lies 

Before his door, his children all around, 
From twig to twig the simple sparrow flies, 
Frightened to hear their laughter's sound. 

Or, when the farm-boy, with his shining spade. 
Freshening the mould around the garden 
flowers, 
Disturbs him, timid, but not yet afraid, 
He chirps about him there for hours. 

And when, his labour o'er, the urchin leaves 

The haunted spot, he seeks some lofty spray, 
And there, with ruffled throat, delighted 
weaves, 
Gushing with joy, his lovely lay. 



78 EARLY POEMS. 

Perchance, his nest discovered, children come, 

And peer, with curious eyes, where lie the 

young 

And callow brood, and then with ceaseless hum, 

He, shrew-like, scolds with double tongue. 

A little while, and on the gravelled walk 

The nestlings hop, or peer between the grass, 
While he sits watching on some blossom stalk, 
Lest danger might toward them pass. 

He sees the cat with stealthy step, and form 
Pressed closely to the ground, come creeping 
through 
The white-washed fence, and with a loud alarm 
He flies ; and they — they swift pursue. 

So passes Summer ; and when Autumn treads 
With sober step the yellowing woods and 
vales, 
A mellower song the gentle sparrow sheds. 
From orchard tree or garden pales. 



THE FR1NGILLA MELODIA. 79 

And, as the nights grow cold and woodlands 
dim, 
He seeks, with many a kin, a w r armer clime, 
And perching there, along some river's rim, 
Fills up with song the solemn time. 

But, with the sun of March, his little soul, 
Warm with the love of home, impels him 
where, 
In bygone hours, he owned love's sweet control ; 
And soon he breathes his native air. 

And then again his merry song rings out, 

And meadow, orchard, valley, wood and plain 
Ring with his bridal notes, that seem to flout 
Dull echo with their silver strain. 

And so his round of life runs ever on ; 

Happy, contented, in his humble sphere 
He lives, loves, sings ; and when the day is gone 
Slumbers and dreams, devoid of fear. 



80 



THE COMING OF AUTUMN. 



Hurrah for brown Autumn, hurrah ! hurrah ! 

He hastens o'er valley and plain, 
And the withering wind is his shout of war, 

And many, alas, are the slain. 
He has wreathed him a robe from the crimson 
leaves, 

And a crown from the ivy green ; 
In his hand he holdeth a stoup of wine — 

He 's a jolly old fellow I ween. 

The poet may sing of the pleasures of spring, 

And prate of the season of love ; 
But ho ! for the hour when Autumn throws 

His armies o'er meadow and grove. 
And the wail of the wind is the song for me, 

With its wild and sudden cry; 
For it feeleth the tread of his heels so red, 

And shrieks as he gallops by. 



THE COMING OF AUTUMN. 81 

Hurrah for brown Autumn, hurrah ! hurrah ! 

He maketh the blossoms decay, 
And driveth the birds from the wood-side 
brown 

To the tropical islets away. 
But he gives in their stead the ruddy fruit, 

And the reaper's rolicking song, 
And the hunter's horn on the naked hill, 

As he chases the fox along. 

Hurrah for brown Autumn, hurrah ! hurrah ! 

He rides over valley and plain 
As a conqueror rides through the carnage of 
war, 

When trampling the breasts of the slain. 
With the loud tempest shout for his battle-cry, 

And the sleet for his sharp-edged sword, 
He maketh the oak and the blossom to fall 

In the dust, at the feet of their Lord ! 



82 



THE AUTUMN WIND. 



Whether thou comest from the mountain 
brow, 

Or surgest from the melancholy north, 
Wind of the Autumn ! that around me now 

Sendest sad music to my lonely hearth, 
I know not, yet I give thee, gladly, hail ! 
Tracing God's voice within thy solemn wail. 

Sad to the rest, but sweet to me thy song, — 
Thou, who hast revelled where the cygnet 
soars, 

And boreal breezes bear the strains along 
That rises ever over Lapland's shores ! 

And thou hast freshness in thy fitful sweep, 

Gathered all freely from the northern deep ; 



THE AUTUMN WIND. 83 

And bearest on thy wings the pine's wild shriek 
As it soughed 'neath thee, whirling swiftly 
past; 
And the old oak-tree's quivering branches creak 

Again around me, in thy groaning blast ; 
And far above me, in the gusty sky, 
The broad-winged eagle screams while soaring 
by. 

Thou hast been sweeping o'er the sleeping lake, 
Tossing its waves all mountainous on high ; 

And thou hast eddyed through the tangled 
brake, 
Mocking all scornfully the panther's cry ; 

And swiftly rushed along the rolling river 

Whose falling shakes the sturdy rock for ever. 

And thou hast passed o'er gardens ; for thy 
sigh 
Is fragrant with the delicate scent of flowers ; 



84 EARLY POEMS. 

Or where the gentian and the aster lie 

Beside the brooklet in the forest bowers. 
Whose mossy trunks and limbs, grown sere 

and grey, 
Mourn o'er their offspring that upon thee play. 

And thou wilt pass o'er other lands along, 
As now thou passest sadly over mine, 

And the poor man shall sorrow at thy song, 
And weak and worn, at hearing thee repine, 

Hailing thee, weeping, as the courier grim 

Announcing winter and its wants to him. 

Wind of the Autumn ! Welcome and farewell ! 

But not forgotten shall thy coming be, 
For thou hast wound around my heart a spell 

Of solemn sadness in thy memory, 
And after hours shall on its surface find 
The impress of thy visit, Autumn Wind ! 



85 



ELEANORE. 



There's a lustre in thine eye, 
Eleanore, 

Mellow music in thy sigh, 
Eleanore ; 

But the radiance, falling free, 

And the sigh — are not for me, 
Eleanore. 

Bland as breathings of the breeze, 
Eleanore, 

Sounds thy step among the trees, 
Eleanore ; 

But when me thou com'st to meet. 

Fall like lead thy tiny feet, 

Eleanore. 

8 



86 EARLY POEMS. 

Gladly rings thy singing out, 
Eleanore, 

Like a fairy's frolic shout, 
Eleanore ; 

But the song when sung for me 

Hath the moaning of the sea, 
Eleanore. 

Falls thy hair in braids of light, 
Eleanore, 

O'er thy beaming brow of white, 
Eleanore ; 

But for me they were not made, 

And I sorrow in their shade, 
Eleanore. 

When I came of old, thy glance, 
Eleanore, 

Seemed with loving light to dance, 
Eleanore ; 

But thy glances now are ever 

Far the brighter when we sever, 
Eleanore. 



ELEANORE. 87 

I am lone without thy love, 

Eleanore, 
And my life with grief is wove, 

Eleanore ; 
While the scorn thy glances dart 
Makes a winter in my heart, 

Eleanore ! 



MARY 



There were no laurels on her girlish brow, 
When first in childhood's holy hours they 
met ; 
There were no words of love, no whispered 
vow, 
No trembling tones to cause his wild regret. 
She was too innocent to dream of love, 

And, — thinking — hoping not, he thought her 
fair: — 
Passed on ; while he, in solemn silence, wove 
The thoughts that wrought him all his future 
care. 



MARY. »9 

They met again: — The girl had passed away, 

And, in her place, the lovely woman stood ; 

There was deep love within her eyes of grey, 

And in her heart a magic, merry mood ; 
There were sweet graces in her ways, that 
stole — 
Like winds that pilfer from unknowing 
flowers 
Their balmy breaths, — the worship of his soul, 
His heart, his hopes, the lightness of his 
hours. 

He saw her fairy form in dreams by day, 
He felt the pressure of her hand at even, 

And heard her voice of melody, and lay 
Like one who hears, entranced, the hymns of 
heaven. 

He watched each motion of her rustling dress, 
Each lustrous movement of her liquid eyes, 

Envied the air its undisturbed caress 

Of her, whose presence was his Paradise. 

8* 



90 EARLY POEMS. 

And Time rolled on — and things, they had their 
change ; 

He saw she loved him, but too poor to claim 
Her hand with honour, — with a wild and strange 

Stern passion taught the maid to hate his 



name 



Taught her to hate him — when his heart was all 



One world, of which she was the single sun 



& j 



Taught her to hate him — And the heavy pall 
Fell on his hopes — his day of joy was done! 



She was a child of song ! Her heart was bred 

In love of God and God's most lovely things ; 
Her lofty soul to passion's dreams was wed, 

And, Sappho-like, she felt its serpent stings ; 
But, unlike Sappho, with a secret scorn 

Of him who left her, lived in silence on, 
Her hope the future — her remaining morn 

Stained with no thought of one so coldly 
ijone. 



MARY. 91 

And he grew rich, and they were yet apart 

She knowing, dreaming not he loved her 
still- 
That he had ever loved her — that his heart 

Was yet the utter plaything of her will ; 
For they were friendless of the kind of friends 

Whose single word had torn the veil away 
That kept from these two hearts the love that 
lends 

The light to life — that changes night to day. 

And Time still passed — and Fortune, who had 
rent 
The twain asunder, with a smiling eye. 
Again her glances on their pathways bent; 
And heard with pitying ear each lingering 
sigh; 
And, like two streams that through a waste 
had crept 
For weary leagues, in sight but yet apart. 
Their tides of love together ran, and slept — 
The peaceful ocean of a common heart. 



92 



TO AN OLD OAK. 



Shake, shake thy head in the wind, 

And wave thy locks, old tree, 
That men, when they think of thy glories gone, 

Shall feel for thy fall with me. 

But they never can feel for thee, 

Old Oak, as the passionate Poet can ; 

For he hath the heart that loves old friends, 
And they have the heart of man — 



TO AN OLD OAK. 93 

The cold and stern and stony heart, 

And the stolid soul within 
That owns no God save the Idol Self — 

Nor priest but the priests of sin. 



Now, the Poet's heaving heart is warm, 
And spurns the taint of the clod — 

Is warm with the love of the good of Life, 
And fresh from the hand of God. 



And he will say, thou ancient Oak, 
That, though so grim and grey, 

Thy branches sung a gleesome song 
In the merry month of May — 

That, likewise, in the hot July, 

They made a pleasant shade 
For the wayworn wanderer, as he strode 

Along *the sweltering glade — 



94 EARLY POEMS. 

That August saw the cattle sleep 

Beneath thy branches green, 
Where the warbling wood-bird fed its young 

In the depth of their emerald sheen. 

And he will sing, old honest Oak, 
Of a thousand things like these, 

And spread thy fame on the wings of song 
Away o'er an hundred seas — 

And he will love thee long and well, 

And a Poet's love is worth 
The purest pearls and the reddest gold, 

And the richest gems of earth. 

So, shake thy head in the wind, 
And rustle and whistle, old tree, 

To the withering blast as it surges by, 
A note of thy olden glee. 



95 



THE PASSAGE OF THE BIRDS. 



They are passing, they are passing, 

Their sylvan songs are gone, 
And wood and vale, and bosky dale, 

Are wailing them alone — 
Wailing alone, their leafless trees 

Quivering before the blast 
That bears the dying echo 

Of their latest warblings past. 

Gone are the murmurs of their wings: 

No single sound I hear, 
Save one, the falling of the leaves 

Within the forest sere — 



96 EARLY POEMS. 

The low, faint fall, as one by one, 
Each sinks to seek its mate 

That lies upon the frozen ground, 
In ruin desolate. 

'Tis sad to bid the birds farewell, 

The birds that all the spring 
Fluttered among our leafy trees, 

For ever on the wing — 
That, in the summer, built their nests 

Before our very eyes, 
And taught us how above all art 

Were nature's harmonies. 

But they have passed, and now the blast 

Sweeps shrieking through the boughs, 
Where, every morn and eve, their sweet 

And silver songs arose. 
But winter hath an end ; and then 

Mine ears shall hail the strain — 
The magic, mellow melodies 

Of my summer friends — again. 



97 



TO A RUINED FOUNTAIN, 



In a green Arcadian valley, 
Grey, with lichen overgrown, 

Where the blandest breezes dally, 

Chaunting, ever musically, 
Roundelays with silvery tone, 

Stands a mossy fountain, broken, 

Of the ancient day a token. 

On the basin-sides are graven 

Forms of chiefs and maidens bright, 
Whom the never-dying raven 
Hath forgotten, — nameless even 
In the poet's lay of might; — 
With Bacchantic figures glowing, 
Through the crystal waters flowing. 



98 EARLY POEMS. 

On the ground beneath it, sleeping, 
Lies some quaintly sculptured God, 

O'er the scene no vigil keeping; 

While the willow, on it weeping, 
Trails its leaves along the sod, 

And the ivy climbs beside it, 

Seeking from the sight to hide it. 

Fountain ! Old and grey and hoary ! 

Like an aged man you sit 
In that home of song and story, 
Where the relics of old glory 

(Dreamy visions !) hallow it, 
With your sweetly mournful singing, 
Back its faded memories bringing. 



99 

TO E , 

WITH A WITHERED ROSE. 



The rose you gave me, love, has lost 
The beauty of its blooming hour, 
But still, a fairy fragrance clings 
Around the ruined flower : 
And so, the smile you gave me, love, 
Shone but an instant on my sight, 
And yet, its memory remains 

To thrill me with delight. 

And now I give the rose again, 

Content that memory should be 
The only thing to call me back 

To thought of love and thee, 
For lo ! our lots are set apart, 

And mine is all too sad a way 
To shadow with its cypress boughs 
The morning of thy May. 



100 



DEATH-SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 



[" One of the admired nightingales, we spoke a few days ago 
of having been invited to hear, sang itself to death one or 
two mornings since. The two were in separate cages, sus- 
pended, one in the porch, the other in an adjacent room. 
They appeared to be engaged in a trial of their musical 
powers, and were exerting all their strength, rustling their 
wings, ruffling their feathers, jumping about their cages, 
varying and swelling their songs until the whole air seemed 
filled with the sweet volumes they uttered. This they con- 
tinued for some time, when one of them fainted away and 
died. His little heart seemed to have swelled with the 
spirit of song until it bursted, and his soul passed away."] 
Richmond Compiler. 



Forth on that last glad strain — 

Thy swelling soul sprang forth and fled away, 
While on the earth reposed 

Thy breathless clay. 



DEATH-SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 101 

'T was sweet — full sweet to die 

Amid the music of thine own glad heart ; 
To burst the chords of life.. 

And so depart. 

But whither, sweet one, where 

Hath flown thy gentle soul ? Unto that 
heaven, 
Where rose thy happy hymns 

At close of even ? 

Or in some kindred form 

Reposes it, till twilight's quiet hour 
Shall call it forth again 

With freshened power I 

Or, through the scenes so loved, 

Dost thou now wander on ethereal wing, 

And 'mid the moon-lit groves 

Flit sorrowing? — 
9* 



102 EARLY POEMS. 

When, in the dim midnight, 

My steps have wandered 'neath the arching 
trees, 
Oft have I heard sweet sounds 

Float on the breeze. 

And then, enwrapt, I thought 

Them lays of disembodied souls of those 
Whose sylvan songs to God 

All pure uprose. 

Perchance, when ever again 

I seek the woods, upon my wondering ear 
May fall thy spirit-song, 

In cadence clear. 

Thine was a hapless end; 

For, like to fire, thy love of song consumed 
Thine own high heart, and thou 

Did'st die self-doomed ! 



DEATH-SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 103 

Thine was the death of those 

Who seek for earthly fame, and wildly crave 
Men's worship here, to find 

An early grave. 

Better to look on high, 

With hopes and thoughts to One, Almighty, 
given ; 
Then, immortality 

Is thine in heaven ! 



104 



EULALIE VERE. 



With an eye, like the eagle's, bewilderingly 

bright, 
With tresses as black as the pinions of Night, 
With cheeks where the loveliest of lustres 

reposes 
On valleys of lilies and mountains of roses, 
She walks in her beauty, the May of the year, 
The queen of the season, young Eulalie Vere. 



EULALIE VERE. 105 

Though the days of the tourney are over; 

though dust 
Concealeth the helmet, half-eaten with rust ; 
Though the falchion is sheathed, and the pen- 

oncel furled ; 
Though knighthood hath waned, like a dream, 

from the world : — 
Yet the troubadour lives to entitle her peer 
To the proudest in loveliness, — Eulalie Vere. 

And though she is scornful as beauteous, and 

cold 
As the ice of the poles, she may bow to the 

bold; 
For the heart that is coldest burns fiercest 

when fired, 
Like the soul of the Poet by passion inspired ; 
And so, though she scorn me, despising all fear. 
I will win me and wear me, this Eulalie Vere. 



106 



TO THE AMERICAN SKY-LARK. 

(After Bryant's "Water-Fowl.") 



Far, far away, 

With the blue heavens around thee, in the 
light 
The red sun sheds upon thy plumage grey, 
Thou tak'st thy flight. 

And, like a strain 

Of music poured from lips of seraphim, 
Thy song descends upon the smiling plain, 
A heavenly hymn. 

And there thy mate, 

Amid the springing spears of emerald grass, 
Sits on her nest, whilst thou, with heart elate, 
Dost upward pass, 



TO THE AMERICAN SKY-LARK. 10? 

Waiting the hour : 

When, with her gentle young, she '11 seek 
again, 
With swelling soul and wing of freshened 
power. 

The azure plain. 

Sweet bird, farewell — 

Thine is the flight of Genius, that awhile, 
Lark-like, ascends beneath Fame's sunny spell 
And Fortune's smile. 

But soon the storm ! 

Then, with the swiftness of thy downward 
flight, 
It passes from the vision^ and its charm 
Is lost in night. 



108 



ELLENA. 



She stood alone, though crowds were round, — 

Lone as a lovely summer isle 
Which ever was enchanted ground — 

And there was music in her smile 
That made my throbbing pulses bound, 
And my heart trembled at her sigh's sweet 
sound. 

She sang, and all w T ere breathless. Bright 

And lovely shadows floated by ; 
The air was full of mellow light, 

And full of melody the sky ; — 
A new sphere came to grace my night, 
Her sisters hailing her with wild delight. 



ELLENA. 109 

She glided by me : All I ever heard 
Or dreamed of loveliness was hers : 

She was a fawn — a flower — a bird — 
The fairest things were ministers 

To make her bright ; and at her word 

The hushed air shook, — with human passion 
stirred. 

She spoke to me : her radiant eyes, 
Glowing with sunshine, gazed on me; 

I felt the presence of her sighs 

As angel things, and bowed the knee. 

What could I else 1 Our quiet skies 

Never before beheld such planet rise. 

She passed : there was nor sun, nor moon. 

Nor stars, but chaos dark and dim ; 
The air was like an August noon, 

Alive with heat ; and, from the rim 

Of slumbrous clouds, a maniac tune 

Rang in mine ears, like songs sung in a swoon. 
10 



110 EARLY POEMS. 

Lethe's a dream, a fable ! borne 
By shadows from the shadowy Past, — 

A feather, by the Ages worn 

And on the solemn Present cast, — 

A relic of what was; for torn 

I sought its waves, but found them not, and 
mourn ! 



Ill 



TH£ COMING ON OF NIGHT. 



Down drops the dying sun : 
The low breeze floats among the nodding 

boughs, 
And o'er the shutting flowrets gently flows. 

Night cometh, robed in dun. 

Her quiet step is heard, 
Like the far echo of some trickling spring, 
Or the faint murmur of the downy wing 

Of some up-springing bird. 

And from the dreamy sky 
The moonbeams fall, and luminously shiver 
Among the ripples of the silver river 

Meandering slowly by. 



1 12 EARLY POEMS. 

And from the sleeping stream 
The mirrored stars, a spiritual light 
Fling hazily o'er grove and rock and height, 

That smile beneath their beam. 

Forest and field are still ; 
Nature seems wrapt in slumber; wholly dumb, 
Save, when the frog's deep bass or beetle's hum, 

Or wailing whip-poor-will, 

Disturb her weary ear; 
Or the far falling of the rippling rill 
That sings while leaping down the silent hill, 

Her dreamless sleep to cheer. 

It is a night of love ! 
Oh blessed Night ! that comes to rich and poor 
Alike; bringing us dreams that lure 

Our hearts to One above. 



113 



VIOLET. 



Violet — sweet Violet, 
Thy raven tresses were a net 
To mesh young hearts; — 

Thy radiant eyes 

(The mightiest of all mysteries, 

Those eyes !) 
Shot roseate darts, 
As free as Dian's glances fall; 
While lashes — heavy as the pall 

That o'er them lies — 

Shadowed a cheek of white and red, 

Where Love, love-lorn, had made his bed. 
10* 



114 EARLY POEMS. 

And Thou art cold — all icy cold — 
Wrapped in the shroud's funereal fold ; 
And none are by, 

Save me, to keep 

The solemn vigil o'er thy sleep — 

Sad sleep ! — 
Whence not a sigh 
Breaks on the slumberous silence, while 
I gaze upon thy rigid smile, 

Yet, dare not weep, 
Lest thou might wake, and chide the one 
Who sent thy soul where it hath gone. 



Thy present bed — thy virgin bed, 
On which thou liest cold and dead, 
Shall lose thee soon; 

And worms will mate 
And frolic — mirthfully elate — 
(Sad fate!) 
In death's dull noon, 



VIOLET. 115 

Upon thy lovely limbs, and creep 
Where sweetest odours loved to sleep; — 

While, soon and late, 
Above thy grass-grown grave I pray 
To God to wash my sin away! 



116 



A GIFT. 



I give thee all I may, love, 

A heart whose hopes are dead — 

A ruined altar! grey, love, 
With ashes overspread, 

And cold as is the clay, love, 
Whence life a day hath fled. 

It was not always so, love; 

That heart hath had its fire ; 
But many a week of woe, love, 

And many a wild desire 
Have quenched its youthful glow, love, 

And bade its flame expire. 



117 



I am standing all alone, love, 

A blighted, blasted tree, 
That to the winds doth groan, love, 

In helpless agony — 
To the winds whose maniac moan, love, 

Floats round it fitfully. 

It was not always so, love ; 

That tree was once as green 
As thy young way ; but lo ! love, 

No more its pride is seen ; 
Nor spring, nor summer's glow, love, 

Can change its wintry mien. 

That shrine again can burn, love, 
That heart with hope beat fast, 

That tree its blossoms turn, love, 
Defying to the blast, 

If thou wilt but inurn, love, 
The ashes of the past. 



118 



THE OWL. 



When twilight fades, and evening falls 

Alike o'er tree and tower, 
And Silence, like a pensive maid, 

Walks round each slumbering bower, — 
When fragrant flowrets fold their leaves, 

And all is still in sleep, 
The horned owl, on moon-lit wing, 

Flies from the donjon keep. 

And he calls aloud, " tu-whit, tu-whoo !" 

And the nightingale is still* 
And the pattering step of the nurrying hare 

Is hushed upon the hill ; 



THE OWL. I 19 

And he crouches low in the dewy grass, 
As the lord of the night goes by, 

Not with a loudly whirring w r ing, 
But like a lady's sigh. 

About the wood the owlet floats, 

Like the breath of the evening wind: 
But scattering fear and leaving a drear 

And desolate dread behind: 
Up through the oak-tree's leafy crown, 

He seeks his slumbering prey, 
Or, dimly, down through the tangled dell. 

Glides, spectrally, away. 

But an honest bird 's the hated owl, 

Though many a heart he chills, 
And many an innocent breast with fear 

His midnight music thrills ! 
In russet garbed, he lives his life, 

With never the thought of change, 
So long as he has the leafy wood 

And the briery brake to range. 



120 



SONG. 



Moments were, but ah ! how fleeting ! 
When to love me thou didst deign: 

Then my tongue, at every greeting, 
Told what it may ne'er again : — 

Ah! how thrilling was the pleasure, 
When my lips, impressing thine, 

Tasted bliss thought ne'er could measure- 
Transport for which Gods might pine! 



SONG. 121 

Though I laugh amid my sorrow. 

Know a lip oppressed with care 
Frequent will from pleasure borrow 

Smiles to hide the anguish there; 
But thy smile that, once undoing, 

Left my heart to writhe in pain, 
Though in luxury 't were wooing, 

Never may win it back again. 



11 



VZ2 



MUTIUS SCiEVOLA. 



Three thousand cycles gone ! And yet 
A halo circles him, whose name 

Rang through the storied streets of Rome, 
The loudest on the lip of fame. 

And still his memory stirs the soul, 
As, proudly o'er the historic page 

Gathering new glory as it goes, 
His spirit stalks through every age. 

And dreamers o'er old tablets rise, 

With heaving hearts and eye-brows bent, 

When reading of the Roman youth 

Who sought the Etrurian tyrant's tent. 



MUTIUS SCEVOLA. 123 

They view him lift his gleaming blade, 
And strike the seeming monarch down, 

Turning to meet his certain fate, 
With all a Roman freeman's frown ; 

Or, standing at the altar's side, 

Thrusting the hand which failed the aim 
Stern Freedom taught his soaring soul, 

Unquivering, in the scorching flame. 

And when that hand was all consumed, 
Dashing the shrivelled limb away, 

Smiling — with lip and eye of scorn— 
Upon the tyrant king's dismay. 

iVnd hear him, still defying, tell 
Porsenna, trembling on his throne, 

Old Rome had yet three hundred sons, 
Sworn to the deed he should have done: — 



124 EARLY POEMS. 

To do ; but not to fail like him ; 

For which — his only fault — he sought 
Forgiveness of the Gods; but not 

To flee the death his deed had bought. 

They see Porsenna clasp the maimed 
But god-like Roman to his heart — 

Bidding the single-handed take 
His country's safety and depart — 

And joy, with throbbing breasts, to find 
That there were those, in Pagan days. 

To do the deeds which Christian men, 
Porsenna-like, can proudly praise; 

And feeling this, will pray, that when 
Their country needs, she may command 

As bold and brave a Roman heart, 
As Mutius of the single hand. 



126 



THE FORSAKEN. 



They tell me, in the giddy crowd 
No laugh is half so loud as thine, 

And that the homage of the proud 
Is frequent at thy shrine ; — 

That 'mid the dance, and in the song, 
And where the red wine freely flows. 

Thy step is light, thy voice is strong, 

Thy cheek with pleasure glows. 
11* 



126 EARLY POEMS. 

• it 

They tell me beauty joys to hear 

The magic music of thy tongue ; 
That when thou singest, the votive tear 

Falleth from old and young. 
They tell me this, and smile to see 

My heaving breast and heavy eye, 
Though well they know that, loving thee 
I love until I die. 

Well, go thy way ; and never wake 

The feeblest memory of me, 
To wring thy worthless heart ! I break 

Thy chains, and set thee free. 
Thou, to thy mirth ! I, to my gloom ! 
Health to the coldest of the twain ! 
And mine — not thine — the iron doom 
Of having loved in vain ! 



127 



LAMENT OF ADAM. 



Glad was our meeting ; thy glistening bosom 1 

heard 
Beating on mine, like the heart of a timorous 

bird; 
Bright were thine eyes as the stars, and their 

glances as radiant as gleams 
Falling from eyes of the angels, when singing 

by Eden's purpureal streams ! 



128 EARLY POEMS. > j( 

Happy as seraphs were we, for we wandered 
alone, 

Trembling with passionate thrills, when twi- 
light had flown. 

Even the echo was silent. Our kisses and 
whispers of love, 

Languished unheard and unknown, like the 
breath of the blossoming buds of the 
grove ! 

Life hath its pleasures — but perishing they as 

the flowers : 
Sin hath its sorrows, and sighing, we turned 

from those bowers : 
Bright were the angels behind, with their 

falchions of heavenly flame : — 
Dark was the desolate desert before us, but 

darker the depth of our shame ! 



129 



THE STATUE-LOVE. 



When first he knew her, she was all 
A statue — beautiful but cold.. 

And passionless as though her eyes. 
Her lips, and all her mould 

Were Parian marble; — yet he knelt 

To that wherein such beauty dwelt. 

He taught her how to love, and what 
Love was : — unveiled its mystic light 

Made of her heart a Paradise. 
And gave her day for night — 

Yea, and a mind ; and bade her be 

Like others — owning power to see. 



130 EARLY POEMS. «' 

To feel and know ; — and then she stepped 
From lovely girlhood into all 

The breathing woman, making man 
The creature of her call; 

And physically lovely, bent 

Above him — beauty's ornament. 

But there she paused. He could not make 

Her spiritual, or erect 
The proud perfection that he sought 

From such an intellect 
As hers: and so, beneath this blight, 
His passion faded in a night. 

And still they met, and he had wed 
The marble whom his touch had given 

The attributes Promethean 

His hand had stolen from heaven; 

But that her novel love declined, 

Like his, and vanished down the wind — 



THE STATUE-LOVE. 131 

And falling, like a falling star, 
As brilliant, but as icy cold — 

The drapery on her breast asleep 
In many a fluted fold — 

She stood, serenely stern, at last, — 

A marble Pallas of the Past. 

He smiled, and went his way. Of old 
His very dreams were given to her 

And, like Pygmalion, he had stood 
A statue's worshipper: 

He could not cling to stolid stone, 

And went as he had come — alone! 



132 



MAY. 



The dainty May is come, with steps like 
pauses 
Between melodious cadences, and glances 
Gleaming with smiles ; — a robe of emerald 
gauzes 
Draping her delicate limbs. A glory dances, 
Halo-like, round her, and the plain is bright 
From the excess of that luxurious light. 

O'er earth — their cradle — wave the trembling 

tresses 
Of gorgeous grasses : fairy flowers inwoven 
With many-coloured hues — whence fragrance 

presses 



MAY. 138 

(When the warm sun their radiant buds hath 
cloven,) 
In silver mist, wave over wave, to heaven — 
Drink beauty, star-like, from the dews of even. 

Old mossy oaks, Druids decayed and hoary, 
Arise from dreams — and, while the twittering 
swallow 

Hovers above them, don their ancient glory : 
The spotted fawn careers along the hollow : 

And many a bird fills the soft wind's fine ear 

With heavenly harmonies that it thrills to hear. 

Deep in the dingle — singing, gurgling, plashing 
O'er wave- worn stones — the rippling stream- 
let murmurs; 
While through its light the brighter trout is 
flashing. 
The air is full of bees — ethereal hummers ! 
Fays of the atmosphere, that love to bosom 

Themselves, like Oberon, in some bright blos- 
som! 

12 



184 EARLY POEMS. •, 

An olden Dryad, May, art thou, oerflowing 
(As stars with light) with primal tender- 
nesses, 
And clasping thee, the passionate bard and 
glowing, 
Wanders away through sylvan lonelinesses, 
Alive with love, — his heart a silver river 
On which the swan of song floats gracefully 
for ever. 



iar> 



DRAMATIC FRAGMENTS. 



She grew beneath the kiss of love — Yes! 

grew — 
Like flowers beneath the kisses of the sun ; 
And as the buds put forth their petals, she 
Unfolded newer beauties every hour, 
Until the gazer, mute and wondering, knelt 
In speechless adoration of her charms. 



What ! In the hour when sorrow crossed thy 

path 
Did she forsake thee 1 Then she never loved ! 
Love, like the ivy, clasps the ruin, not 
Forsakes the soil on which it sprang to life. 



136 EARLY POEMS. . ,, 

Love smiles the brightest when affliction shakes 
The shades of sorrow from her raven wings, 
But never, viper-like, destroys the hand 
That gave it birth and being. 



Love has its phantasies. To-day, 

'Tis warm and glowing as the summer sun ; 

To-morrow, cold and wintry as the blast 

When dark December rules the fettered earth. 

Who seeks to keep it hath a weary task : 

He must rise early as the matin lark, 

And go to bed when the owl goes— at dawn. 

'Tis a strange thing, this love !— a wayward 

thing, 
And changeful as the wind : — it never blows 
More than two hours alike ! 



137 



THE SONG OF THE SCALD, BIORNE. 



[Biorne, Biarne, or as it is more properly written in the Norse 
dialect, Bjorn Grimolfson, a scald or bard, and at the same 
time, a Viking, or sea-king, was one of the earliest of the 
Norsemen who landed on the shores of America. Eric 
Rauda, or Eric the Red, was the first. The story of the 
Scald is somewhat romantically told in the following ballad. 
But a sequel still remains. Nearly thirty years afterward, 
in 1026, an Icelander, named Gudliep, sailed for Dublin, 
but, blown about by adverse winds, was driven upon our 
northern shores. He, with his crew, were immediately seized 
by the savages and borne into the interior. There, to their 
great surprise, they were accosted in their own tongue by 
a war-worn chief, who, by dint of his influence in the tribe, 
saved them from the clubs of the natives. They were more 
astonished, when, on their embarkation, he inquired after 
several individuals in Iceland, and made them the bearers 
of a gold ring and sword, the one to Thurida, the sister of a 
celebrated Viking, Snorre Godc, and the other to her son. 
She had subsequently married. He refused to disclose his 
name, but, on their arrival home, no doubt was entertained 
that he was the Scald Bjorn, Thurida's Poet-lover, who had 
fled from Iceland in 998.] 

To the winds with my flag ! Let it tremble 

with ire 
As it streams from the mast, like a meteor of 

fire: 

12* 



138 



EARLY POEMS. 



Let it leap at one bound, like a god, into life, 
The herald of danger and desperate strife ; 
And cloud on our canvass, and, Vikingirs all, 
O'er the seas, like gyr-falcons, to conquer or fall ! 

Ho ! away ; for what care we for country or 

home ? 
We can find others fairer, where'er we may 

roam ! 
There are yellow-haired maidens and riches in 

store 
For us, who can gather, on ocean and shore ; 
There are lands, where the sun never ceases 

to shine, 
Where the rivers run gold and the forests bear 

wine ; 

There are lands where our snow-fields and ice- 
bergs would be 
A wonder — a terror — a horror to see ; 



THE SOKG OF THE SCALD, BIORNE. 139 

Where the landscapes have flowers like the 

hues of their skies, 
And as fragrant with sweets as their own 

maidens' sighs ; 
Where seraph-like birds sing from dawn until 

night, 
And even breathe music, till morning breathes 

light ! 



And there, the sleek Lords of the South hold 

their sway, 
O'er a people as timid and feeble as they : 
And these — the weak cowards, who pale at 

the sight 
Of a Norseman's fierce falchion, that flames in 

the fight- 
Shall they revel like gods on such treasures as 

these, 
When the war-worn Vikingir commands on 

the seas ? 



140 EARLY POEMS. 

Thurida, Thurida, thou false one, farewell ! 
That the Scald has adored thee shall history 

tell : — 
That he scorned thee at last shall be written 

as red 
As his fame, when he lies, like a Jarl, with the 

dead. 
And when Odin receives him, his song shall 

declare 
Thou wert lovely as light, but as fickle as fair. 

He will sing how the Poet — God's heaven-born 

son ! — 
Bowed his loftiest soul to earth's loveliest one ; 
And how, when he tendered his love, she 

returned 
But her scorn for the hopes in his bosom inurned, 
And told her base vassals, with fire-flashing 

eye, 
" Let the song-singing lover, the rude Runer, 

die !" 



THE SONG OF THE SCALD, BIORNE. 141 

Oh, Odin ! 'twas pleasure — 'twas passion! to see 

Her serfs sweep like wolves on a lambkin 
like me ! 

With one surge of my steel how their heads 
rolled around, 

Like tree-tops the hurricane hurls to the 
ground ! 

Like oaks 'neath the lightning they cumbered 
the land, 

Falling limbless and shorn 'neath my death- 
bearing brand. 

And she, the proud maiden, when toward 

her I strode, 
In the glittering gleam of her golden abode, 
How she trembled, her breasts heaving high, 

as she felt 
My iron hand on her arm, when before her I 

knelt, 
And with that red right hand uplifted, I swore 
To carry her falsehood from shore unto shore ! 



142 EARLY POEMS. ,, 

I pressed her pale lips — twas the kiss of young 

hate ! 
And I left her to Odin, to conscience and fate : 
I left her — her brother's proud palace in 

flame — 
I left her — to linger the chosen of shame 1 
And I laughed a loud laugh as I strode through 

the dark, 
When that flame had gone down, to my iron- 
bound bark. 

Ho ! Warriors, Vikingirs, and Jarls of the 

North ! 
Our flag 's on the wind, and our canvass is 

forth ; 
Hoist anchor; now, Iceland! Cold country! 

adieu ! 
For we go, iron-handed, our fortune to woo, 
And we sweep, like the eagles — we children of 

war — 
With fire-flashing eyes, to our harvest : — 

Hurrah ! 



143 



SUMMER. 



Summer sits on the landscape. Softly stealing 
Athwart my senses creeps a delicate scent, — 

The breath of blossoms — kindling eager feeling 
To leave my city home, and pitch my tent 

Beside the cool blue sea, or in some glade, 

Where I can loll me in the oaken shade, 

And hear the far-off hum of waters, falling 

With silvery plash from rock to rock ; or see 
The warbling wood-bird, to his partner calling, 

Among the foliage of some mossy tree, 
Where he flits round, with song of sylvan 

pleasure, 
While she sits brooding o'er her callow 
treasure ; 



144 EARLY POEMS. 

Or, climbing some high mountain-peak, to view 
The earth beneath me like a picture lie, 

Dim as a dream, till the horizon's blue 
Makes it a portion of the placid sky, 

That girds the prospect, like a mother's arm 

Shielding her babe even from the fear of harm: 

Or, looking on the sunrise, to behold 

Its glories soar above the glowing clouds, 

Beneath whose veil of crimson, rimmed with 
gold, 
He for awhile his burning splendour shrouds. 

Like a young maid who veils her lustrous eyes 

And opes them, joying in her love's surprise : 

And there to feel the fragrant morning breeze 
Kiss my warm cheek, and winnow through 
my hair, 

While far below, the waving Titan trees 
Rustle, like grasses, in the delicate air, 

Which, with Aurora's rising, from the sea. 

Chariots itself along o'er wood and lea. 



SUMMER. 145 

These are thy joys, ! Summer ! These — thy 
spells, 
To woo the poet-seer, who in thy smiles 
Basks as in sunlight : for within thee dwells, — 
In thy low languishment, — thy winning 
wiles — 
A foretaste of that Eden his soaring soul 
Sees in his dreams, and leaps to as its goal. 



J 3 



SONNETS. 



149 



THE MINDS OF ELD. 



The wise, the learned, and the great of Eld 
In iron days have written with pens of iron 
High histories, that, halo-like, environ 
Their names with holy glory. Some have held 
These sacred relics of these noble souls 

As heathen dreams ; but then the purely wise 
Know that from out the Past great thoughts 
arise, 
With might to crumble even the adamant poles. 
For me, go bring a goblet all embossed 

With flowers, and Fauns, and Hebes ruby- 
lipped, 
Dug out from some old pyramidal crypt, 
And from the light of life for ages lost, — 
That, with an Io Paean, I may pour 
Libation to those Titan minds of Yore. 



13 



150 



LIFE. 



Alas, alas, alas ! and what is life ? 

A dreaming of dim dreams and their forget- 
ting! 

A princely planet in its rising, setting ! 
A white plume seen, and sinking in the strife 
Of hoping — yearning for what Time will sweep 

Away unheeding; and no more — no more 

We walk the earth ! But on the shadowy shore 
Beyond the stars — beyond the azure deep — 
Beyond the purple verge of infinite space — 

The immortal soul of Man shall live a^ain ! 

Live where its glories never more may wane, 
And where its nobler memories will efface 
All thoughts which rend the solemn pall away 
That shrouds the meanness of its primal clay ! 



151 



LONELINESS. 



It is a sad, sad thing to be alone — 

Alone within a world so bright as this — 
To meet at night no light and welcome kiss, 
And hear no answer to our heavy moan, 
Save, loud without, the solemn organ-tone 
Of the wild, wintry winds about the eaves, 
Or rustling in the woods the withering 
leaves. 
x\las, alas ! for early hopes — they 've flown ! 
Their song aroused no echo and — they died ! 
Died, like an infant sinking into rest, 
And seeking heaven from its mother's breast ; 
Leaving me nothing but my iron pride — 
Pride, which I wrap around me, as I tread 
The ways of life : yet, to its pleasures — dead. 



152 
ENDURANCE. 

Some writhe — some sink — some die, in this rude 
world, 
Beneath the rough blows of their brother man; 
But there are those that scorn his envious ban, 
Who, with high hearts and lips serenely curled 
In honest hate, laugh at the slanders hurled 
Against the armour of their honesties — 
Who, flinging out their banners on the breeze, 
March on; their noble eyes with tears impearled 
That flesh should be so base — who, as they go, 
Scatter the seeds of honour o'er the land, 
Knowing that after times will see them stand 
Tall trees, whence shades shall fall and music 

flow, 
To glad some way-worn brother's heart — some 

soul 
Who seeks, with trust in Truth, Fame's golden 
goal. 



15;^ 



MOONLIGHT. 



A yellow halo swims around the moon, 

The air is slumbrous with the scent of buds, 
And wakening, rises in the quiet woods 

The linnet — flooding echo with his tune. 

A languor fitted to a night in June 

Hangs, palsying them, upon the restless 

hours ; 
And heavily slumbering on the dreaming 
flowers 

The breeze lies ; — breathing like the air of noon. 

Such time, unquiet fancies come and go, 
Recalling memories of days gone by 
Before the Poet's second-sighted eye, 

Teaching him what no common soul may know : 

Such hour, he snatches from the grasp of Time, 

The deathless wonders of his golden rhyme. 



154 



INDIAN SUMMER. 



The air is warm — warm as in June — the sky 
As blue as June's, and yet I hear no song, 
Nor even the chirp of birds ; and far along, 
Stirred by the light wind, or the passer-by, 
The crimson leaves are crackling; and the cry 
Of hunters' hounds sweeps o'er the yellow 

hill. 
Choked in its bed, in silence sleeps the rill ; 
The rabbit leaves his form ; and far on high, 
On the tall hickory, the squirrel springs 

From limb to limb, and yet the woods are 

bare; 
And though the air is June's, the forests wear 
A wintry aspect ; while the silence brings 
My thoughts to times when I, if living, sere, 
May yearn for hours as bright, when all around 
is drear. 



155 



ON A MISTY MORNING IN MAY. 



The morn is cloudy, and a dampness chills 
My bones, as though the air were full of death : 
The leaves are still ; the wind has hushed its 
breath, 
And but that in yon oak a vireo shrills, 
Bringing me with his song to murmuring rills 
And grassy fields — to mossy oaks and flowers, 
I were as one aweary of his hours ; 
But now I tread on ferned and laurelled hills. 
Although the sky bends, like a ghost, and waves 
Her white arms o'er me; and the fleecy clouds 
Lie, like the dead wrapped in their snowy 
shrouds, 
Waiting the sun to light them to their graves : 
And Nature, dropping tears that men call rain. 
Weeps o'er the sombrous gloom of grove and 
plain. 



15(5 



ALPHEUS. 



What art thou, sweet ? — A Dryad of the trees, 
Or Nymph from some unkindest Satyr flown, 
Or seventh Pleiad, who o'er earth alone 

Wanderest, — wasting thy music on the breeze '. 

Not fairer, Dian when her heaving breast 
She bared to kisses of the bright Endymion — 
Not sweeter, Psyche when her beauty won 

Young Eros to a languid, luscious rest 

On her ripe lips — not warmer, Venus when 
She melted in the embraces of Adonis, 
Nor rosier Io, 'neath the fiery kiss 

Of flaming Jove, than thou, as through the glen 

Thou fly'st thy Alpheus. Arethusa, stay ! 

Or I shall, ghost-like, wane and waste away. 



157 



THE DESOLATED. 



" One step to the white death-bed, 

And one to the bier, 
And one to the charnel — and one, oh, where V 

Shelley's " Gincvra." 

Rest, weary heart, and sleepless spirit, rest; 
Not long, not long, thy steps shall linger here : 
The darkened room, the death-bed, and the 
bier 
Follow most closely ; and thy lofty crest, 
O ! mortal body, by the passer pressed, 

Shall fret not at his scorning; nor, O! soul, 
Shalt thou glance backward from the glorious 



To which thou sprangest, as toward his nest 
Flies the freed dove, for words that stain alone 
Thy earthly fetters : — No ! for bright ahead, 
Beyond the Vale of Shadows, lie dispread 
The spirit-lands, to angels only known ; 
And there, the immortal halo round thy brow. 
Thou shalt not heed the carks that sting thee 



now. 



14 



158 



THE POET'S GRAVE. 



Build me no vault, with sculptured marble, 
crowned, 
For death seems darkest with the coffined 

dead ; 
But form a broken column for my head, 
And lay me gently in the grassy ground ; 
And o'er me let a green Ailanthus grow, 
That shadows from the Tree of Heaven 

may glide 
Like spirits round me ; and, if aught of pride 
Lurk in thy tender breast for priest so low 
In Nature's temple, on the pillared stone 
Inscribe, — " Here sleeps a Poet," — with my 

name: 
Then, if Time gives its simple sound to fame, 
To those who loved me living shall be known 
My sepulchre ; and those who knew me not 
Shall pause with solemn hearts and ponder at 
the spot. 



159 
LYDIA. 

The Ideal of a dream wast thou, — a vision 
That should have been when earth was fresh 

and young, 
And innocent; when morning songs were sung 
By truthful lips — when Virtue made Elysian 
Delights of all she saw — when in the grove 
Pan sat i' the cool at noon, and watched his 

herds, 
And even in streams, and stars, and flowers, 
and birds, 
Men worshipped God — when what we now call 

love 
Was so sublimed, it made of earth a heaven, 
And mortals angels: then thou shouldst 

have been, — 
And haply, — wandering through some valley 
green, 
A God had seen thee, (for old lore has given 
Such dreams t'the Gods,) and for a nectared kiss 
From lips like thine, foregone Olympian bliss. 



160 



POSTHUMOUS FAME. 



Who striveth for the far-off Future, feeds 
Upon the empty echo of the breath 
That issues from the charnel lips of death, 

And soweth in the fields of Time the seeds 

(For what are memories of mighty deeds?) 
Whose harvest other men shall reap, — the 

while, 
Reaping, they sneer and scoff, and scornfully 
smile 

At him who grew for them ungracious weeds. 

Learning soars ever onward ; — what to-day 
Is great and glorious, cycles hence shall be, 
To children of that time, the A, B, C, 

Which were so simple in our childish way ; 

For scorning what is past — what path it trod — 

The soul progresses steadily toward God. 



10] 



THE POETS SOUL. 



The Poet's soul was never yet alone : 

What time the body sleeps, it walks, in 

dreams, 
Through shadowy vales, and by ethereal 
streams, 
Toward dim Eternity's adamantine throne. 
The spirits of the many-memoried dead, — 
The hoary-headed seers of primal days — 
Companion it beneath the ancient rays 
Of wan Astarte: those whom death has led 
From lesser spheres are wandering at its side ; 
And gazing back, on what we cannot see, 
And forward, knowing what we next shall 
be, 
It graspeth lore to common men denied : — 
Then with the dawn it seeks its prison clay, 
And ever after yearns to soar away. 
14* 



162 



DEAD-MAN'S ISLAND. 



A lonely islet, stretching far away 

Through the blue distance — where the sea- 
fowl sit 
Along the wind-ribbed sands, or, shrieking, flit 
As ghosts around me, when, like one, I stray 
Among their haunts — where rolls the restless 
surf, 
Making sad music ; while the screaming tern 
Frights from his food the solitary hern, 
Or brooding black-duck from her nest of turf 
In the tall sedge. Half hidden in drifted sand, 
Sea-weeded, mossy, black with age, are bones 
Of mighty barks, by which the ocean moans : 
And "neath that dim, primeval, solemn strand, 
Unseen, forgotten, where the stranger's tread 
Disturbs them not, repose the Ocean-Dead. 



163 



BETHLEHEM. 



A little town, embraced by happy trees, 
Around which sleeps an atmosphere as sweet 
As airs of Paradise ; where fairy feet 
Tinkle at midnight on a balmier breeze 
Than ever blew o'er Ceylon's spicy seas. 
And where, throughout the long and languid 

day, 
Poised on the poplar's silver-rinded spray, 
The Oriole blows his clarion-sounding glees. 
Far brighter spots may beam beneath the sun, 
But none so bland in beauty — none so calm 
With heaven's own quiet, which, distilling 
balm, 
Dreams in its streets — and like a kneeling nun 
Hearing high mass, it looks with reverent eyes 
Through clasping greenery on the tranquil 
skies. 



104 



TO KEATS. 

Grown languid with excess of sweetness, Keats, 
Like one intoxicate with scents that creep 
From jasmine buds, I sank in tranced sleep ; 
And then with thee, along a dell where dates 
Ruffled their feathered leaves, and all was green 
With dewy grasses, took my dreaming way. 
" Here," said thy flute-like voice, " here, 
where we stray, 
Strayed Dian — here, amid this scene ! 
And in these meadows, by these gleaming 
streams, 
In ancient cycles fed the flocks of Pan : 
Here sported Nymphs, and there the Satyr 
ran : — 
Alas ! alas ! that these were only dreams !" 
And they were dreams — dreams that these 

latter days 
May wonder at, ne'er equal, but must praise. 



165 



HEART-LAND. 

A slumbrous valley lies in every breast, — 
A fairy spot o'ergrown with fragrant flowers, 

Where, ever flowing through the halcyon 
hours, 
Are ruby rivers, thrilled with strange unrest ; 
And where, all round, a forest grows, whose 
crest 
Is green and gold, about which, singing, sail 
Delicious birds, w r hose music lulls the gale ; 
And there are mossy meadows, lightly prest 
By gentle Feelings, that at altars grand 
Kneel on the lily-sprinkled sod, and pray 
Or chaunt harmonious hymns the undying 
day 
To Love, the ruler of that radiant land, 
Who, listening, with his Psyche hand in hand, 
Crowns, one by one, the brightest of the band. 



166 



NATAL STARS. 



How frail the fable, that the stars which rule 
The life of men wane at their death away! 
Those glorious, golden spheres abhor decay : 
They live and live for ever ! 'T was a fool 
Who taught such doctrine. At my birth, a 
star — 
A star that had for cycles jewelled space — 
Looked from its sapphire throne upon my 
face: 
It marked me then, has ruled me since, and far, 
Where crimson Mars reins in his neighing 
steeds, 
It watches now ; and, when along my brow 
The death-damps creep and fall, its golden 
glow 
Will burn as brightly : so, my spirit feeds 
The thought, that when its earthly ring is riven, 
That planet is its own — its destined heaven. 



1G7 



THE POET. 



God makes the Poet, and the Poet makes 
Himself a god ; for with an adamant pen 
He writes his name upon the hearts of men ; 

And, with a more than Sampson strength, he 
shakes, 

As through the clouds of common life he breaks, 
A golden glory from his vigorous wings. 
Not his the life of myriad meaner things, 

Nor his their death ; for when he dies he wakes 

In heaven, but leaves behind him, glowing here, 
A second immortality, — his own, — 
The work of his own hands — his royal throne. 

Reared on the wide world's love, and not its 
fear; 

And here, that second soul, in every age, 

Thrills the proud spirits of the purely sage. 



168 



ASTARTE. 



Thy lustre, heavenly star, shines ever on me ! 
T, trembling, like Endymion over-bent 
By dazzling Dian, when with wonderment 

He saw her crescent light the Latmian lea ; 

And, like a Naiad's, sailing on the sea, 

Floats thy fair form before me: the azure air 
Is all ambrosial with thy hyacinth hair ; 

While round thy lips the moth, in airy glee 

Hovers, and hums in dim and dizzy dreams — 
Drunken with odorous breath : thy argent 

eyes, — 
Twin planets, swimming through love's 
lustrous skies, — 

Are mirrored in my heart's serenest streams — 

Such eyes saw Shakspeare — flashing bold and 
bright, 

When queenly Egypt, rode the Nile at night. 



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